


Fallout

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort/Angst, Fluff and Angst, Inline with canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 07:12:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1217254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Leorio is fully halfway down the block in the other direction before his brain clicks in recognition and sparks into frantic overdrive." The consequences of Leorio passing Kurapika on the street after manga chapter 339.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meeting

Leorio has developed a habit.

He knows that’s all it is, a bad habit born of desperation and anxious, constant, nagging worry he can’t ever entirely escape, and he knows he should  _stop_ , because every time he turns hard towards a fall of blond hair it’s only ever followed by disappointment. It’s gotten worse, not better, as the months have gone on, until now he’ll turn for long pale strands and black clothes as quick as for white-and-blue fabric and curling gold, until he half-expects to see Kurapika around every street corner.

Continual disappointment means that this time, when his eyes catch on dark clothes and yellow hair, he glances, and turns away, and is fully halfway down the block in the other direction before his brain clicks in recognition and sparks into frantic overdrive. He spins back around, eyes frantically scanning the crowd because it  _couldn’t_  be, there is no way it --

There. Black fabric, a suit rather than the clinging jacket Leorio last saw, but the hair is right, just brushing the shoulders and over a foot lower than the top of Leorio head, and those shoulders and that walk and the shape of the hands, he  _knows_  those, he doesn’t need to see Kurapika’s face to recognize him.

His mouth is open around a call of delighted recognition before he chokes it back.  _He hasn’t been answering your calls_ , his mind points out.  _He doesn’t want to see you, he’ll run if he knows you’re here_.

Killua must be rubbing off on him. Leorio growls, drags a hand desperately through his hair and ignores the people glancing at the stranger standing transfixed on a busy sidewalk and staring after a moving figure. He thinks it’s the thought of Killua that does it, after all, the desperation to show that even if the younger boy would let Kurapika walk away Leorio Paladiknight damn well  _won’t_.

He moves fast enough that he gains on the blond, even though the other is moving smoothly through the crowd and Leorio is forcing his way straight down the middle without regard for oncomers. It takes him another couple of blocks to get close enough, and then he’s near enough to touch and suddenly has absolutely no idea what to  _do_.

“Kurapika,” he says. The name catches in his throat so he thinks it’ll be lost entirely, but the person in front of him is turning sharp and startled, and that should be confirmation in itself. Leorio is still startled when the movement completes and there, yes, he knows that face and he knows those  _eyes_ , wide and startled and  _horrified_ , and it’s only because he’s expecting it that he gets his hand around Kurapika’s arm as the blond twists to bolt.

They are both frozen for a moment in tableau, Kurapika staring with his mouth open at Leorio and Leorio staring back, feeling as shocked by  _actually_  seeing Kurapika as the blond looks to be by him. Then Kurapika swallows visibly, and when he speaks Leorio is expecting an apology.

“What are you doing here?” he asks instead, and Leorio’s mouth drops open.

“What do you mean?” he says, more shocked than angry. His voice is too loud; Kurapika hisses and glances around, and when he moves towards a side street Leorio follows purely because he’s not going to relinquish his hold on the other man’s arm. “What am  _I_  doing? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for  _months_ , Kurapika, why didn’t you return my calls?” They stop at the start of a currently-deserted street and Kurapika turns back around to face Leorio. The shock on the blond’s face is hardening into anger and Leorio doesn’t know  _why_  it should, but he’s starting to get angry too and he knows  _damn_  well why that is.

“I thought you were  _dead_ ,” he says, and the sentence slides wildly between tearful and furious on his tongue. “What the  _hell_  have you been doing that you couldn’t stop to talk to me for half a minute?” Kurapika twists his arm to jerk free and Leorio lets him, half-ready for the blond to run and not sure he’d follow now. The blond doesn’t move, though, just lets his arms hang limp at his sides and stares accusingly up at Leorio while the other man continues. “You’ve been entirely out of contact, didn’t you listen to any of my  _messages_? We’ve been  _worried_  about you,  _I’ve_  been worried about you, you said you’d  _call_  why didn’t you --”

“I’ve been busy,” Kurapika says over him, too fast, faster than Leorio has ever heard him talk so the panic is audible in his tone. He’s still looking at Leorio, though, faux-black eyes fixed on the other’s natural ones, and his eyes are cold and focused but at least Leorio can see him.

He’s  _missed_  Kurapika, is the problem. Leorio’s angry now, has been angry for months at a low-level simmer, but when he thought about a reunion he always thought about backing Kurapika up against a wall, yelling until he ran out of words and had to make do with sticking his tongue down the other’s throat, and Kurapika murmuring that he’s sorry, that he had his reasons, that he missed Leorio as much as Leorio’s been missing him. But there’s none of the heat that has underlined Leorio’s memories of the other, none of the flicker-flash of want in his veins, just cold rejection in Kurapika’s eyes, and Leorio’s remembering that now, too. He saw this the night Kurapika went after the Troupe, the structure of a wall that the blond was building around himself.  
The difference is that, this time, it’s not coming down, and Leorio doesn’t know what to do. He wants to keep pushing,  _force_  it away so he can have Kurapika back instead of this stranger staring at him like they’ve never met, but the expression under the fall of blond hair is getting harder as he keeps talking, and his intuition says this isn’t how to go about mending things.

 _Maybe there is no way to go about it_ , his voice says again.  _Things change._

 _Gon hasn’t changed_ , he shoots back across the arena of his own thoughts.  _Gon wouldn’t give up_.

 _You think Gon hasn’t changed?_  his voice says, soft and sad, and he blinks and flinches and leans back, away from the man in front of him.

“Yeah.” He says. “You’ve been busy.”

Kurapika is staring at him, but there’s no change in his eyes, just a relaxation of the resistance as Leorio stops putting up a fight. They stand silent for a moment, just watching each other. Then Kurapika shakes his sleeve smooth of the wrinkles Leorio’s fingers put in it, shakes Leorio back out of his life, and starts to turn away even before he speaks.

“I  _am_  busy,” he says. This time Leorio doesn’t reach out to stop him. He doesn’t turn to watch Kurapika walking away, either, and when his mind whimpers for what could be the last look at the other he’ll get he shuts his eyes and puts a hand over his eyes until it’s been long enough, until the possibility is gone and the temptation with it.


	2. Forgiveness

Kurapika very nearly doesn’t knock on the door. He has spent his walk across the city thinking about turning around, telling himself that he’s  _going_  to turn around, that he’s better without distractions and that Leorio is better without him and that he  _won’t go_.

He goes, though, all the way across the intervening blocks, relinquishing every possibility of turning around until he’s in front of the hotel door with his hands hanging at his sides and his very last chance to leave in front of him. The walls of the room are thick enough that he can’t hear anything from inside, but he keeps imagining he can hear the too-heavy footfalls of Leorio’s unnatural height, keeps thinking he’s catching a phrase in the other’s familiar voice.

 _Do it_. His hands are shaking, more full of adrenaline than when he is fighting for his life, and his heart is racing, and he knocks on the door without thinking. It’s been months since he did  _anything_  without thinking.

There’s what feels like a small infinity between the sound of his fist against the wood and the actual door opening, long enough for his stomach to swoop down and up and down again, and then the door parts from the frame and Leorio is there with his coat and tie and shirt off and a toothbrush in his mouth and a half-smile of apology that melts away as he takes in Kurapika.

They are both very still for a moment. Then Kurapika says, “I’m sorry,” just as Leorio says, “Kurapika” in a tone like he’s been punched in the stomach, and somehow the way it goes garbled around the obstruction in his mouth makes it more heartwrenching and not less. Kurapika takes a breath with a throat suddenly sodden with tears, and his eyes are burning, and Leorio steps out of the way and holds the door open without any sign of hesitation.

That is what does it. That after months of utter silence and Kurapika’s deliberate cruelty not five hours before, that Leorio just moves away to let him in without anything other than a half-heard apology -- Kurapika’s next breath sounds like a sob, and he steps in fast so he can cry inside Leorio’s room instead of in the hallway outside it.

Leorio shuts the door behind him and moves into the bathroom to spit and rinse his mouth, and Kurapika feels horribly self-conscious, aware of the mess of clothes and half-packed belongings strewn all across the bed and the chair and the table evidence of his intrusion into a space Leorio clearly didn’t expect anyone else to see. He’s still wearing his suit, which seemed like a good idea when he left, but now that Leorio’s shirtless in the other room he feels overdressed, excessively formal for what is ultimately an exercise in grovelling and pleading for forgiveness.

Leorio comes back out, wiping his damp mouth with the back of his hand. He’s barefoot too, Kurapika notices half-desperately, and he’s wearing loose pajama pants instead of his usual slacks, and Kurapika looks up at his face and Leorio stops dead a few feet away.

“Kurapika, are you --” he starts, staring at the blond’s eyes. Kurapika takes another choking breath, and when he blinks he can feel his emotion-scarlet eyes overflow with a wash of tears across his face. Leorio makes a whimper of panic in the back of his throat and his arms come around Kurapika’s shoulders as Kurapika lifts his hand to drag a sleeve roughly across his face. The movement pins Kurapika’s arm between them so his wrist is jammed into his nose and his elbow is digging into Leorio’s ribs, but Kurapika’s crying properly now and can’t straighten himself back into composure.

“Leorio,” he says. It’s been weeks since he let himself think the other’s name, months since he’s said it aloud. He pushes his arm free so he can loop his elbow around Leorio’s neck and press his forehead into the other’s chest. “Leorio, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I --”

“You  _should_  be,” Leorio says sharply, but his touch is out of all context to his words. His fingers are in Kurapika’s hair, pressing the other in closer to his bare skin, and his other arm is slanting across Kurapika’s back to hold the blond steady and upright. “You should be  _extremely_  sorry, what were you  _thinking_ ,” but he’s stroking against Kurapika’s hair and Kurapika’s tears are pouring against gravity up his throat until he can’t speak coherently at all.

“Come on,” Leorio says after a moment, and Kurapika comes, follows the other man into the room itself while Leorio shoves everything atop the mattress onto the floor before turning back to the blond. He reaches out to push Kurapika’s jacket off his shoulders and onto the floor with as little consideration for that as for his own belongings, and when he sits on the edge of the bed Kurapika follows without waiting for an invitation. Leorio doesn’t protest when Kurapika drops beside him, and when Kurapika turns sideways to angle his legs over Leorio’s lap Leorio just wraps his arm around the blond’s waist and pulls him up until Kurapika is properly against him and can turn to bury his face in Leorio’s shoulder and cry like the world is collapsing around him.

This was not part of his plan. He had planned to say he was sorry, to shower Leorio with apologies until the other man had to let him in, maybe work his way around to a half-hearted explanation. It’s been too long since he spent any time with the other, though, and he was expecting Leorio to behave the way Kurapika would in his position, and the total lack of expected resistance left him entirely defenseless and shattered before he even began.

“I’m furious with you,” Leorio says to his shoulder, and against all logic that makes Kurapika laugh. Leorio doesn’t, although he doesn’t pull away either. “Did you listen to  _any_  of my messages?”

Kurapika shakes his head without trying to speak, and Leorio keeps talking.

“Gon almost died.” For a moment Kurapika thinks Leorio is exaggerating, but when the other man keeps talking he has a level set to his tone that strips all of his usual excess from the meaning. “It was weeks, when we thought we would die on any day, at any hour.” Kurapika’s ragged sobs taper into choking inhales, inversely linked to the horror rising in him. “Killua was a mess.” Leorio takes a breath and Kurapika can feel it catch in his chest with the memory of terror. “He was barely coherent even before he disappeared to get help.”

“Did he?” Kurapika whispers against Leorio’s skin. His limbs have gone stiff with frozen horror.

Leorio heaves a sigh. “He did. Saved Gon and started talking again, but he --” Leorio shakes his head. Kurapika can feel the movement against his hair. “Neither of them look the same, anymore. Things have been happening to them. Bad things, Kurapika. I  _told_  you all this, we  _needed_  you,  _they_  needed you.”

Kurapika wants to cut him off, declare that he  _knows_ what he did, that he doesn’t need Leorio to tell him, that it hurts to hear it. He doesn’t speak or move, barely breathes, and lets Leorio keeps talking, keeps his attention focused on the words so each one falls with all the weight it ought. It’s the best he can do, now.

“You weren’t  _there_ , Kurapika, and I thought you were dead on top of everything else, and when Gon woke up he asked where you were, did you know that? He expected you would be there, and if you had answered my  _damn_  calls you  _could_  have been. What the hell have you been doing that was more important than Gon’s  _life_?”

Kurapika shakes his head. “It wasn’t.” He chokes and has to take a breath before he can go on. “Wasn’t more important. I -- that’s why I’m here. It was a mistake.”

That’s the understatement of his life, and Leorio’s sharp laugh says that he knows it too. “A  _mistake_?”

“I don’t know what to say,” Kurapika says. He’s flushing hot with shame and misery and self-loathing all together, his skin is burning and his blood is cold and even the contact of Leorio’s skin against his face and Leorio’s fingers in his hair can’t spark up a flicker of heat into his hypothermic veins. “I’m sorry but that’s not  _enough_. I can’t -- I can’t fix this.”

“No,” Leorio says, and Kurapika shuts his eyes.

Leorio leans back, and his hands shift from Kurapika’s back and hair to grip his shoulders and hold him away, and Kurapika blinks and looks up to see the hatred in Leorio’s dark gaze. He deserves it, after all.

Leorio’s mouth is still set into a frown of anger, but his eyes aren’t cold like Kurapika is expecting, like Kurapika half-wants them to be out of some masochistic impulse. They’re hot, burning on the blond’s face, and when Leorio speaks his voice is shaking with the same burn.

“I’m  _furious_  with you, Kurapika,” he says, and Kurapika nods sharp with agreement, of  _course_  he’s angry, he has  _every right_  to be angry. “I’m going to kiss you.”

Kurapika nods again without thinking, anything Leorio wants, of course, yes, whatever he can do, and he’s only just started to freeze up as the shock of meaning registers when Leorio’s mouth hits his. The shock doesn’t withstand the press of lips, and the other man’s mouth pours heat into Kurapika’s blood to melt away the horrified ice that had formed during the other’s speech.

Leorio pulls back for a breath and Kurapika realizes his mouth is open, his hands are up around Leorio’s neck. “ _Totally_  furious, don’t forget,” he gasps, and Kurapika nods in understanding and Leorio comes back in to slide his tongue past Kurapika’s lips. He’s warm and solid and  _perfect_ , Kurapika’s blood is flaring hotter than it has all these months alone, and when Kurapika whines against Leorio’s mouth hands come up into his hair to hold him still and he feels like he can breathe again, like there has been a pressure crushing him slowly into stasis and his heart is only now beating properly again.

“Don’t  _ever_  do that again,” Leorio says a minute later, as he’s kissing the side of Kurapika’s neck and tugging desperately at his tie. Kurapika is trying to kick his shoes off -- one is off but the other is tied tighter, he has to fold his leg up to reach the ties so he can pull the knot free -- but he nods so the other man can feel the movement. When Leorio pushes him back Kurapika goes fast enough that he hits his head on the foot of the bed, come back up hissing in pain, and Leorio slides backwards and drags Kurapika out of range of the frame before leaning in over him to keep kissing a path down the front of his shirt as he works the buttons open.

“Call me  _every_  day,” Leorio orders, and Kurapika laughs but it sounds like a sob, and he’s crying again, the sobs uncontrollable so he has to cover his mouth with a hand just to muffle the sound. “ _Promise_  me, Kurapika.”

“I promise,” Kurapika says, and then Leorio’s got his shirt open and Kurapika’s sitting up to touch again, because even if he’s sobbing his hands are better at touching Leorio’s skin than covering his own mouth, and Leorio kisses him anyway and the hiccuping sounds are lost under the other man’s tongue. His skin is superheated, and Kurapika can feel every shift of muscle as Leorio tries to keep his somewhat precarious balance, and then Leorio loses focus again and pulls away to tug off one of Kurapika’s socks.

That makes the blond laugh, even around his choking tears of relief. “Leorio, do you even have a plan here?”

“Sure I have a  _plan_ ,” Leorio snaps, abandoning the sock idea in favor of shoving Kurapika’s shirt back off his shoulders to puddle on the mattress behind him. “You’re wearing too many clothes and I am getting them off you.”

“But you’re --” Kurapika starts, twisting so he can pull off the remaining footwear while Leorio’s fingers trace out the pattern of his ribcage and he tries to breathe. “You’re angry.”

“I am.” Leorio kisses him again. “And I missed you. Both together.” Another kiss, and this time he doesn’t pull back far enough. “I missed you a  _lot_ , Kurapika.”

Kurapika laughs damply. “I missed you too. I --” he chokes and has to swallow hard. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Leorio says, and comes back forward so Kurapika is pinned between the other man’s shoulders and the bed.

It’s easy to forget, with Leorio. That’s why Kurapika pushed him away in the first place, because he had to  _focus_  and it was impossible to do that when he could barely leave for the unconscious pull Leorio exerted on him. He’s still not sure it’s the right decision, any more than he’s sure leaving Leorio in the first place was the right decision. Maybe they should have stayed in Yorknew City together. Maybe they should have stayed together after the Exam, for that matter, left Gon and Killua and shared some tiny apartment and learned  _Nen_  together and tangled around each other’s limbs at night in a too-small bed. Kurapika doesn’t know, anymore, and that scares him more than anything else. But at least with Leorio he has something solid to lean against, something other than the temporary intensity of his revenge. Leorio distracts him from his goal, that is true, that is  _still_  true, but without Leorio there’s not much  _after_  that goal either.

Leorio’s tongue drags over his chest, trailing heat and damp in its wake, and Kurapika groans and arches up against the other man’s weight. Leorio grunts and rocks into Kurapika’s leg, and Kurapika becomes very aware of how  _thin_  Leorio’s pajama pants are and how desperately he wants them  _off_  all at once.

“Leorio,” he says without lifting his head from the mattress as he slides his hand down the curve of Leorio’s bare shoulder to his back. “Leorio, let me --”

He doesn’t finish the sentence before Leorio is slithering back up over him and catching the words in his mouth again. Fingers slide around behind Kurapika’s back and shoulder, and when Leorio rolls over onto his back he takes Kurapika with them and reverses their positions. Kurapika sighs and Leorio groans, and the blond turns his hand around to lie palm-down against Leorio’s stomach so he can slide his fingers down past the waist of the other’s pants. Leorio chokes and rocks up into the contact, and Kurapika can’t tell quite  _where_  he’s touching, but the other man is breathing harder with every blind movement of his fingers and that’s good enough for the moment. After a minute Kurapika is able to pull back from Leorio’s mouth and sit up on his heels so he can actually pull Leorio’s pants down far enough that they’re free of the other’s cock, and when he gets his fingers properly around the other’s length Leorio groans and drops back to the mattress like all his desperation has melted into languid enjoyment.

Kurapika has lost the trick of getting Leorio off in the last few months of pointedly  _not_  thinking about the other man, which means he has to relearn it fresh, now. He’s breathing as hard from the excitement of that as from his own thudding desire, from watching the gradations of expression flicker over Leorio’s face from desperate to satisfied to pained and adjusting his movement -- faster, more, slower -- as quick as he can take in the expressions. By the time he finds the right pace Leorio is panting again, and rocking up into Kurapika’s touch, and Kurapika is halfway through another apology when Leorio jerks his head in a negative.

“Don’t apologize -- for this, you’re fine, it -- it’s perfect,” he manages, reaching out to touch Kurapika’s wrist where it’s braced on the mattress. Kurapika starts to lift his hand, thinking Leorio wants him to move or shift or  _do_  something with it, and Leorio fits his fingers into the blond’s and holds tight, like he’s reassuring himself Kurapika’s still  _there_. Kurapika takes a breath and feels tears start in his eyes again, and Leorio takes a breath and rocks up and comes under the pull of his hand. Leorio groans in wordless pleasure, exhaustion and satisfaction purring together in the back of his throat, and Kurapika smiles even as his throat tries to close up with tears again.

“Perfect,” Leorio sighs, and then he opens his eyes and focuses on Kurapika’s face. “Stop, stop, why are you crying?” He sits up and grabs at Kurapika’s sticky hand so he’s holding the blond steady, leans in to press their foreheads together.

Kurapika shakes his head and blinking hard. “I’m okay, I just missed you and I’ve been so  _awful_ , why do you want me back at all?”

“‘Cause I missed you too, weren’t you listening?” Leorio says, laughter just under his words. “Don’t cry  _now_ , it’s kind of a mood killer.”

Kurapika does laugh at that. “So I should wait, then?”

Leorio grins and comes in close to kiss at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah.” He lets Kurapika’s arm go and reaches to tug at the button on the front of the blond’s slacks. “Just wait, okay?”

Kurapika is not sure he can shut off his overflow of emotions as easily as all that, but then Leorio gets his pants open and Leorio’s fingers are dragging down his stomach, and his brain decides that he  _can_  set the tears aside for this. The other man is still breathing hard, Kurapika can feel his breath coming fast when Leorio presses his mouth against the blond’s neck, and when Leorio gets his hand around Kurapika’s length Kurapika whimpers a moan and has to cling to the other’s neck to keep himself upright. Leorio’s rhythm is different than the one Kurapika sets himself, but the difference goes through Kurapika’s blood like fire. There’s not even a breath when he forgets that it’s Leorio touching him, finally finally Leorio’s hands back on him and Leorio breathing against his neck and Leorio’s skin pressed up against his shoulder. When he rocks up into Leorio’s touch the other man groans and shudders like he’s the one being touched, and when Leorio says “Kurapika,” against his neck Kurapika tries to stammer out his name in return, but his orgasm catches him halfway through so it turns into a shivering moan as his hands go desperate-tight against Leorio’s shoulders.

Kurapika is still shaking when Leorio tips them both sideways onto the bed and starts pulling at his pants.

“C’mon,” he mumbles into Kurapika’s hair. “Get these off and you can sleep or cry or apologize or whatever you want to do, okay?” Kurapika laughs at that, amused and damp at once, and wiggles so Leorio can pull his clothes free. Leorio pauses to hitch his pants back up over his hips, and when he comes back in he pulls Kurapika in against him.

It’d be more comfortable to turn around so they fit together back-to-front, but Kurapika doesn’t want to move away, so he tucks his forehead against Leorio’s chest and wraps his arms around Leorio’s waist. When he shuts his eyes he can feel Leorio’s breathing over the top of his hair, and he takes a careful breath and lets himself -- tentatively -- think about a future.


End file.
